


The Devil Wears Heels

by mediapuppy



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: High Heels, M/M, Post-Triple Threat Ending | TT (Henry Stickmin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:34:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28553211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediapuppy/pseuds/mediapuppy
Summary: The first time Charles ever bails on a meeting is to crash a get-together across base, and it's all downhill from there.  Leave it to Henry to figure out all the things he's into before he does.
Relationships: Charles Calvin & Ellie Rose & Henry Stickmin, Charles Calvin/Henry Stickmin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 62





	The Devil Wears Heels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InediblePeriwinkle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InediblePeriwinkle/gifts).



> This little thing got a bit too big to post on Tumblr alone so enjoy!
> 
> Ya’ll can blame InediblePeriwinkle for once again forcing me to write something literally nobody else wants or asked for. They gave me a 3K word limit and told me this could be an exercise in writing something short and fast for once in my life, so have this awful stream of consciousness as I come to the realization that I just wrote an entire fic about a stick figure wearing high heels. This is practically unedited and I refuse to look at it any longer, I’m so terribly sorry it’s not up to par but I hope it at least gives someone a good laugh and a smile! Goodness knows we need it!
> 
> I also think it’s important to mention that I busted out this entire thing to the tune of Porn Star Dancing playing on repeat, which will now never leave my head no matter how hard I try. The things I do for ya’ll

  
  
The first time Charles ever abandons a meeting is halfway through a debrief with General Galeforce on a crisp Saturday night. Ellie texts him from some get-together across base with a blurry picture of Henry hanging off of her shoulder with scotch flush across his cheeks and a smile half the size of his face and it takes Charles approximately .5 seconds to bail on the meeting for the party. Luckily he only sprains his ankle a little bit launching himself out the nearest window the second Galeforce has his back turned and spends the entire ten minute sprint across base trying to untangle all of the things Henry’s poorly-lit, pixelated smile makes him feel.   
  
When he gets there Henry is nowhere to be seen but about everyone he’s ever had the displeasure of being associated with is, either leaning off walls or drinking out of red solo cups in small groups. They all turn to look at him when he busts through the front door.  
  
All of the years of failed high school parties come back to him in a single rush of awfulness that makes his entire body break out in a cold sweat. Charles stops, stands up straight, and starts sliding back out of the door.  
  
Or he would have, if someone didn’t stop him.  
  
“Jesus, did you run here?” Ellie asks, saddling up beside him in the entryway before he can run away. She has a death grip on his shoulder. Sometimes he hates how smart she is.  
  
Charles, who has subsisted solely on greasy mess hall pizza to deal with the past few days of constant meetings, is panting suspiciously hard. He can feel his clothes sticking to him with sweat in the most unflattering ways possible, and his ankle is beginning to ache something fierce.   
  
“No,” Charles lies. He tries to laugh but it comes out as more of a breathy croak that dissolves into a series of coughs as he struggles to catch his breath.   
  
Ellie, wonderful friend that she is, thumps him on the back so hard he almost topples over and brains himself on the floor. Luckily he’s able to get his feet underneath him just in time to spring back up and avoid disaster, which honestly would of been the safer option considering that he’s immediately greeted with Ellie’s face grinning up at him, her lips kicked up at the edges in a way that almost looks dangerous, which Charles does not care for whatsoever.  
  
“No,” he adds on again once he’s collected himself, just for good measure. He looks down in Ellie’s vague direction, definitely not looking around for anybody else. “No, I did not _run_ here. I walked, like a normal person. It’s just been a long day.”  
  
It’s only half a lie, because he’s spent the past few hours trapped in a cramped office space with General Galeforce and a few advisors with no fan in sight, and he’s kind of been marinating in his own stench for the past few days of constant meetings after their last mission resulted in one less helicopter that was apparently worth 5.6 million in taxpayer dollars. He smells awful. This is awful.  
  
Ellie waits until his eyes catch on a rogue blue sweatshirt disappearing around a corner before she responds ( _she’s so fucking smart_ ). “Uh-huh, and you’re definitely not looking for anybody specific, right?”  
  
“No,” Charles says automatically. “I mean, what?”  
  
Ellie’s smile almost reaches up to the lobes of her ears. It’s her scary smile, the one that’s too big and too sharp to mean anything but trouble. Charles has never felt like his life was more in danger than this very moment.   
  
“Come on, I know why you’re here and it’s not for me,” Ellie laughs, too delighted for his own good, knocking their shoulders together playfully.  
  
Charles is about to play dumb, fumbling with a sentence that would definitely convince her that he has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, that he came of his own accord and definitely not because she just happened to know he’d come running if she sent him a picture of Henry smiling like that, and that he’s not as easy to play as she thinks he is sometimes. But she cuts him off before he even gets the chance. Probably for the best.  
  
“I’m just teasing you,” Ellie laughs, giving his shoulder a little reassuring pat that feels like anything but. “Now come on, I sent you that picture for a reason. Try not to have a heart attack.”  
  
Charles doesn’t even have time to ask her what the _fuck_ she means by that before she’s half guiding half pushing him down the hallway and into the living room where about a dozen people are sat in a circle with someone strutting around shirtless in the middle making a fool of themselves. They have their back to the hallway, their body swishing and swaying like the world is on fire, confidence rolling off of them in waves.  
  
Even from a few feet away Charles can see all the soft curves of them under the too-bright fluorescent lights. Charles can see the way their muscles bunch around their shoulder blades when they lift their arms above their head, how their spine makes a perfect curved line down their lean body.   
  
“Amelia’s heels were too big so then Calvin said he bet he wouldn’t prance around for twenty bucks, then Konrad added on another fifty, and it kind of started a pool, and now here we are,” Ellie’s saying from somewhere at his left, but the sound is far away and unimportant. The rest of her words and laughs fade into the background, because the figure turns around and smiles so bright and pretty that the entire room heats up from the sheer radiance of it.  
  
Charles stops listening, because the figure is Henry.  
  
Henry’s a wet dream, all smooth skin and lean angles like he was carved from the Greek gods themselves. He’s in nothing but a pair of running shorts that hang lazily off the sharp jut of his hip bones to the high meat of his thighs, showing off the unyielding curves of his legs, and Charles has never wanted to die in a more obscene way than crushed between them.  
  
But that’s not what makes Charles’ soul feel like it’s ascending from his body.  
  
Henry’s in heels. Honest-to-god heels, some glossy black number that barely fit him judging from the way his toes are all crushed up at the front, but make his legs look so long and delicate that Charles almost goes blind from the way his eyes roll into the back of his head trying to look them up and down all at once.  
  
Henry is a question and an answer at the same time. A beautiful blessing and the most awful curse. He is the most gorgeous thing Charles has ever seen in his life. His chin is pointed towards the ceiling like he was sent from the heavens and raised by the devils, and with his head turned just so Charles can see the way the tendon in his neck jumps out with the force of a laugh erupting out of him. Charles’ mouth goes dry at the thought of how amazing it would feel to have that jumping up against his lips, tracing the dips and curves of Henry’s skin with his tongue.  
  
Ever since the day they met, Charles had always thought Henry was captivating. Henry was wild in his body, propelling himself forward through life with the sort of feverish excitement usually reserved for people who knew their expiration dates. He always laughed like he lived; like the world was on fire, and it’s a part of him that Charles had adored since the moment they met. Even now, off the field and so out of his element, Henry commands his body with the utmost grace, strutting about in someone else’s heels like they’ve always belonged to him.  
  
As if reading his mind, Henry’s ankle turns in and sends him straight to the floor with a meaty thud. Charles immediately rushes forward without even thinking about it.  
  
The crowd whoops and cheers, a few of them patting Henry on his naked shoulders as he lays there on the floor like a starfish. He’s sitting up when Charles practically leaps over someone’s head to see if he’s okay, and that’s when Henry finally notices him. They lock eyes, and Charles’ breath stops dead tide in his lungs. He can feel himself go red all the way up to the tips of his ears. His toes curl inside of his shoes.  
  
A look of surprise flicks across Henry’s face, then settles into something attractive and dangerous, the sort of look Charles imagines Henry used to give to people right before he made off with everything they ever owned.  
  
“Y’alright?” Henry asks him, which is crazy, because he’s the one that just fell flat on his ass in front of everyone. His slurred voice sounds like a spoon running across ice cream on a warm summer day, and Charles feels like he’s run that mile all over again just feeling the words slip down his spine and into the very core of him.  
  
“I,” Charles croaks, and can’t say anything else because whatever comes tumbling out will be more clumsy than him at age fifteen, trying to drive for the first time. “I-”  
  
“Hey,” Calvin pipes up behind them, “he’s your commanding officer, be respectful, Stickmin!”  
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind Charles knows he should probably laugh it all off, but Henry’s still on the floor looking like a meal Charles would say Bless This Mess to before devouring completely, and he hasn’t felt like this since the first time Henry had taken him by the hand and asked him if he and Ellie would like to give this whole team thing a try, as if Charles had ever had a choice. Charles can feel his pulse in his fingertips, and he’s vaguely aware he’s just standing there gaping like a fish out of water. This is when Henry decides to change the energy in the room by personally coming for Charles’ life.  
  
Legs spread, face sweaty and flushed, Henry smiles up at him with all of the bells of hell ringing in his voice. “You alright, _sir_ ?”  
  
A jolt rings up Charles’ spine as if he’d suddenly stepped on live wire. Because oh, _oh_ .  
  
Charles, definitely not choking on his own tongue, laughs in a way he hopes is casual. It’s not. “Yeah, yeah! I’m good, so good.”  
  
The well-worn, awful sight of Henry looking like a fantasy he never dared to have makes Charles’ stress from the past few days wash away, and for a second he’s eroded away to nothing but sheer want. It’s a dangerous want, something that can drive him to do something stupid. He can’t be blamed for what happens next.  
  
Charles leans in and makes to grab Henry’s hand and help him to his feet, but his traitor fingers go to Henry’s bare shoulder instead. The muscles there are hard and unyielding under his touch. He’s as warm as a hot water bottle. Charles can see the delicate rise and fall of Henry’s chest when his breath stutters.   
  
“Charles?” Henry says, worry seeping into his voice. He’s got booze breath that makes Charles’ eyes water, and his hand comes up to his shoulder. It lays down on top of Charles’ with a tender sort of softness Henry shouldn’t be capable of, his thumb rubbing along Charles’ index finger, smiling with lips dyed red from spiked punch, so soft and close under the lights, just close enough to—  
  
“I have to go,” Charles blurts out, a half second before it registers that he’s talking out loud. Charles yanks his hand away as if Henry had burnt him.  
  
It’s the worst thing he could have done. Henry stares up at him like a kicked puppy, all wide, imploring eyes, his lips slightly parted in shock. His entire body seems to deflate.   
  
“Charles,” he says again, something so sad and desperate curling in his voice that Charles’ heart actually aches.  
  
“I don’t feel good,” Charles groans, before he can say something worse. Before he can lean in and put his hand on Henry’s chest instead of his shoulder, before he can throw himself down between Henry’s legs in front of everybody and kiss him so hard and hungry that everything else just melts away. “I’m - I’m gonna go home.”  
  
Charles leaves the living room before anybody can stop him. There’s the hurried click of heels on the hardwood floors behind him, but Henry doesn’t come after him past the front door, and it reinforces the idea that this is the right thing to do.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The second time Charles ever leaves a meeting is four days later when Ellie, who he’s pointedly been avoiding since the weird thing at the party, glares at him through the window until he excuses himself to the restroom and goes outside to meet her.  
  
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ellie asks him the second he rounds the corner and sees her. Her words settle in like a thousand pinpricks under his skin, like a sudden slap to the face. She looks _pissed_ .  
  
“I’m, um, in a meeting,” Charles finally bumbles out. Playing dumb never works with her, but he’s never stopped using it as his default defense technique anyway.  
  
“We’ve been trying to call you for four days! _Henry’s_ been trying to call you for four days!” Ellie seethes at him, and the genuine anger in her voice unsettles him.  
  
Charles doesn’t know why Henry would try to talk to him, unless it was to tell him to stay as far away as possible for the foreseeable future, in which case Charles would want very much not to answer that call. Which is why Charles has been ignoring his phone like the plague for the past few days while trying to push the memories of the party deep, deep into the parts of his brain where they’ll never see the light of day again.  
  
He has yet to succeed in doing that.  
  
“You need to go see him,” Ellie says after a few seconds of heavy silence, weirdly intense.  
  
“Uh,” Charles gapes, stops. Through the window he can see General Galeforce staring at him, mouth twisted in annoyance. “I don’t think I can do that.”  
  
She’s not amused, her lips are a tight line across her face, and she locks eyes with Galeforce through the window, who bravely holds her gaze. “Oh yes you can, and you are. I’ll deal with the general, and _you_ need to go deal with Henry.”  
  
Charles opens his mouth to disagree, but Ellie must see it on his face, because she stops him dead in his tracks. “He’s been wanting to show you the new heels he got.”  
  
Charles, who could probably be outrun by a very determined duck, sprints to Henry’s apartment so fast he feels like he’s flying.   
  
The closest Charles had ever gotten to getting a tour of the place was Henry waving vaguely toward a hallway where he said the bathroom was if Charles needed it, so he spends a few seconds frantically sprinting around in the dark after bursting through the front door until he stumbles his way into Henry’s bedroom.  
  
All of his wildest fantasies are there waiting for him. Henry’s reclined on the bed so easily, so casually, his body streamlined. He looks like he could break the speed limit just by laying there, dressed up in the same shorts he was wearing at the party that leaves nothing to imagination. His ass pops out like an exclamation mark and an invitation all at once.  
  
He gets up when he sees Charles standing there, and that’s when Charles sees them. Henry’s wearing a pair of blue heels that give him a few extra inches, enough that Charles has to actually look up at him when he gets closer. Charles is embarrassed with the immediate thought that they make Henry’s legs look so much longer and curved, how much he wants to—  
  
“You’re not gonna leave this time, right?” Henry asks in a way that’s supposed to be casual, but Charles can hear the underlying worry simmering just underneath, and it makes his heart sink down into his stomach.  
  
“No, no,” Charles hurries to get out, practically shaking all over. The world could freeze over and aliens could descend from the heavens and he still wouldn’t even think of leaving. “Nothing could stop me from making up for last time.”

“Good,” Henry says. And then Henry smiles up at him, something insidious pulling up at the edges of his lips. “Because you’re not leaving until I’m done with you.”  
  
Come midnight, Charles still hadn’t left yet.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any suggestions for what I should write next definitely go ahead and let me know! I've never experimented with small oneshots like this before and it was both a struggle and extremely fun, so I'm always up for more ideas! I hope everyone enjoyed and at least got a little laugh out of this travesty!
> 
> And as always, come scream about sticks with me on [Tumblr](https://mediapuppy.tumblr.com/), if you dare.


End file.
